Telengana Revolt (redirected from Telengana Rebellion)

Telengana Revolt 

an uprising lasting from 1946 to 1950 and conducted by peasants of Telengana, a region of the Indian principality of Hyderabad, which is inhabited by the Telugu people.

The Telengana Revolt was touched off by an order of the nizam of Hyderabad to seize “excess” grain from the peasants. After the outbreak of spontaneous protests, Communists and the democratic organization Andhra Mahasabha led an organized uprising. The insurgents formed armed detachments for self-defense and successfully resisted the troops of the nizam. By 1948 the insurgents had established their own bodies of local self-government over a significant part of Telengana and confiscated 1.2 million acres of landowners’ estates for distribution to peasants with little or no land. They established people’s courts, formed militia detachments, and introduced compulsory education on the elementary level.

In 1948 the uprising suffered a setback when troops of the Indian Union entered the principality in order to prevent the separation of Telengana from the country and proceeded to crush the rebellion. Nonetheless, the rebels continued the struggle, using guerrilla tactics. The armed struggle was halted only after an appeal from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India for the sake of normalization of the domestic situation before India’s first general elections.